


Clean

by Fericita



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fericita/pseuds/Fericita
Summary: Another way the scrubbing scene could have gone...





	Clean

After Germantown, he lost all prayer for a time. He knew God’s forgiveness was there for the taking. At bedsides, at gravesides, he comforted desperate souls with assurances of pardon, absolution, grace, mercy. 

He spent so much time on his knees, trying to pray, he decided he might as well make himself useful and start cleaning as he did it. Matron Brannan sighed as she gave him the supplies, but said nothing.

He scrubbed and focused on how the lye made his skin red and angry. How the new skin underneath looked raw and unformed.  
He thought about coming out of the river after his hands had taken another’s life and wondered, can you have a reverse baptism? In one action, can you cast yourself from God’s presence? 

Emma found him this way, scrubbing silently, knees sore, hands red.

He glanced up at her, then down again at his work. Her words were frustrated more than angry. “Stop being so prideful!”

Henry stopped moving the brush and sat back on his heels. He looked up at her, mystified by her demand. “Prideful? I hate myself for what I did. I hate that I did it and I hate that I blamed you. I hate this anger I can’t seem to give up.”

Emma took the brush from him and roughly put it into the bucket. She tried to find his eyes but he glanced just above her shoulder, at an unremarkable painting on the wall. She kept her words even, though he noticed her hands shaking slightly. “You think your deeds are too great for God to forgive. But he forgives all. I have heard you say as much. Is anything too great for God?" 

He didn’t respond, but Emma saw his shoulders relax a bit so she continued. "I beg forgiveness for being comfortable amidst so many who suffered for so long. I don’t know how to be a Virginian or a Green, but I know God has given me the chance to heal and comfort and I do it with gratitude for his great mercy.” 

She left the room with the bucket and the brush and he was left on his knees in the chapel, once again trying to pray and not finding the words, but this time, searching for them.


End file.
